Ryan Widmer: Excerpt from new book further explores bathtub drowning case

The following is a condensed excerpt from a new book that explores hidden angles of a controversial Cincinnati-area murder case that many people still wonder about now, a decade after it began.

Janice (Morse) Hisle, who covered all three of Ryan Widmer’s murder trials for The Enquirer, wrote "Submerged: Ryan Widmer, his drowned bride and the justice system" in an attempt to resolve unanswered questions about the Aug. 11, 2008 bathtub drowning of Sarah Widmer, 24, and the prosecution of her husband of four months, Ryan, then 27.

Cover of Janice Hisle's 2018 book 'Submerged.'(Photo: Provided)

Widmer went on trial in Warren County three times before ultimately being convicted of murder in 2011. Prosecutors and jurors have said they were convinced that Widmer violently drowned his wife, although jurors were unable to agree on a scenario that explained all the known evidence.

Sentenced to serve 15 years to life, Widmer continues to protest his innocence, asserting that a hidden medical problem, such as a genetic disorder, must have caused Sarah’s drowning.

Because Sarah was cremated, prosecutors remain in possession of the sole known source of Sarah’s DNA—and Widmer’s appeals lawyer, Michele Berry, is still fighting to get the DNA released for genetic testing.

If appeals fail, Widmer will remain behind bars until at least July 2025, his first opportunity for parole.

Hisle’s book is based on her personal recollections of the case, more than 10,000 pages of records and fresh interviews with more than two dozen people, including Ryan Widmer.

Hisle encourages readers to make up their own minds about the case.

The book is available at www.janicehisle.com.

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By Janice Hisle

Special to The Enquirer

After a week in the Warren County Jail, Ryan Widmer appeared for his first in-person court hearing—in the same courtroom where he had once served as a juror.

He was too preoccupied to recognize the irony: He was a defendant in the same room where he had decided another man’s fate.

He flashed back to his stint as a juror—the first time he had set foot in a courtroom.

Ryan and his fellow jurors had listened to prosecutors and to a guy who de­fended himself pro se, without a lawyer. Although the jury found the defendant guilty of a drug-paraphernalia charge, the man jumped for joy after learning that he was acquitted of the more serious drug-possession charge. The facts just didn’t support that conviction, Ryan and his fellow jurors decided.

Now it was 2008, three years later, and Ryan, the former juror, stood in that same courtroom as a defendant ac­cused of aggravated murder. He felt confident that justice would be served in his case, just as it had been in the drug case.

About two dozen of Ryan’s friends and co-workers had taken time off from their jobs late on a hot August afternoon to show support for Ryan.

As soon as Ryan entered the courtroom—shackled, handcuffed and escorted by deputies—several of his friends began weeping.

Ryan cried when Sarah’s brother, Mike Steward, asked a magistrate to reduce Ryan’s $1 million bond so he could come to Sarah’s funeral. I quoted Mike in my Enquirer arti­cle: “In our heart of hearts, we don’t believe Ryan did this.”

That sentiment would later change, for reasons the family never publicly disclosed.

Ryan’s bond remained unchanged for a couple days, until Ryan’s lawyer persuaded a judge to decrease it to $400,000. Ryan’s dad paid a bondsman the non-refundable $40,000 fee, hoping to get his son out of jail in time for Sarah’s memorial Mass at St. Susan­na Catholic Church in Mason.

Ryan was released from jail two hours too late.

As Father John Tonkin—the same priest who had married Ryan and Sarah— performed the service, friends flashed back to the couple’s wedding day. How could that happy union now be severed by death, a scant four months later? It didn’t seem possible.

Father Tonkin did his best to infuse some small measure of comfort into the intense heartache filling the air.

Friend Dana Kist wept for Sarah, missing her smile, her sweet enthusiasm, her feisty atti­tude—everything about her. Dana also wept for Ryan, her Bengals buddy. He had been hit doubly hard: Unable to come to the service to mourn and to honor Sarah—while facing an unthinkably horrid accusation: that he had snuffed out his wife’s life.

Dana couldn’t imagine how difficult it had been for Ryan to know that Sarah had undergone two autopsies—and then Ryan had to make the difficult deci­sion about final disposition of her remains.

Ryan and Sarah had never discussed funeral arrangements. They were so young, had been married such a short time, and, presumably, were so far from death.

Ryan decided that, if he had died, he would have preferred to be cremated. Besides, cremation was less expensive than burial, and Sarah had no life insurance policy to cover her final expenses.

Later, Ryan’s decision to have Sarah cremated would affect him in ways he couldn’t have imagined.

At the memorial service, an urn containing Sarah’s cremated ashes sat along­side a photograph of her at the altar.

In Ryan’s absence, his words, read aloud during the service, rang in mourners’ ears and stuck in their heads. The eulogy read more like a love letter to his dead wife—the one he was accused of killing.

In part, it said…

Sarah:

Even though we only knew each other two years it felt like a lifetime. Those two years were the best two years of my life and I could not have chosen a better person to marry…

I am going to live my life knowing you are still right here with me and watching. Even though I don’t quite know what I am going to do without you…

I LOVE U MOST!

Ryan

People at Sarah’s memorial service were touched.

Many were moved to tears, thinking these were the sweet, poignant words of a grieving, wrongfully accused widower.

Instead, could those have been the words of a calculating criminal, trying to generate sympathy he didn’t deserve?

That was one of many questions that would persist long after Sarah was gone.